Improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application

ABSTRACT

Improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application including receiving, by the multimodal browser, a media file having a metadata container; retrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadata container a speech artifact related to content stored in the media file for inclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browser; determining whether the speech artifact includes a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule; if the speech artifact includes a grammar rule, modifying, by the multimodal browser, the grammar of the speech engine to include the grammar rule; and if the speech artifact includes a pronunciation rule, modifying, by the multimodal browser, the lexicon of the speech engine to include the pronunciation rule.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically,methods, apparatus, and products for improving speech capabilities of amultimodal application.

2. Description of Related Art

User interaction with applications running on small devices through akeyboard or stylus has become increasingly limited and cumbersome asthose devices have become increasingly smaller. In particular, smallhandheld devices like mobile phones and PDAs serve many functions andcontain sufficient processing power to support user interaction throughmultimodal access, that is, by interaction in non-voice modes as well asvoice mode. Devices which support multimodal access combine multipleuser input modes or channels in the same interaction allowing a user tointeract with the applications on the device simultaneously throughmultiple input modes or channels. The methods of input include speechrecognition, keyboard, touch screen, stylus, mouse, handwriting, andothers. Multimodal input often makes using a small device easier.

Multimodal applications are often formed by sets of markup documentsserved up by web servers for display on multimodal browsers. A‘multimodal browser,’ as the term is used in this specification,generally means a web browser capable of receiving multimodal input andinteracting with users with multimodal output, where modes of themultimodal input and output include at least a speech mode. Multimodalbrowsers typically render web pages written in XHTML+Voice (‘X+V’). X+Vprovides a markup language that enables users to interact with anmultimodal application often running on a server through spoken dialogin addition to traditional means of input such as keyboard strokes andmouse pointer action. Visual markup tells a multimodal browser what theuser interface is look like and how it is to behave when the user types,points, or clicks. Similarly, voice markup tells a multimodal browserwhat to do when the user speaks to it. For visual markup, the multimodalbrowser uses a graphics engine; for voice markup, the multimodal browseruses a speech engine. X+V adds spoken interaction to standard webcontent by integrating XHTML (eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language) andspeech recognition vocabularies supported by VoiceXML. For visualmarkup, X+V includes the XHTML standard. For voice markup, X+V includesa subset of VoiceXML. For synchronizing the VoiceXML elements withcorresponding visual interface elements, X+V uses events. XHTML includesvoice modules that support speech synthesis, speech dialogs, command andcontrol, and speech grammars. Voice handlers can be attached to XHTMLelements and respond to specific events. Voice interaction features areintegrated with XHTML and can consequently be used directly within XHTMLcontent.

In addition to X+V, multimodal applications also may be implemented withSpeech Application Tags (‘SALT’). SALT is a markup language developed bythe Salt Forum. Both X+V and SALT are markup languages for creatingapplications that use voice input/speech recognition and voiceoutput/speech synthesis. Both SALT applications and X+V applications useunderlying speech recognition and synthesis technologies or ‘speechengines’ to do the work of recognizing and generating human speech. Asmarkup languages, both X+V and SALT provide markup-based programmingenvironments for using speech engines in an application's userinterface. Both languages have language elements, markup tags, thatspecify what the speech-recognition engine should listen for and whatthe synthesis engine should “say.” Whereas X+V combines XHTML, VoiceXML,and the XML Events standard to create multimodal applications, SALT doesnot provide a standard visual markup language or eventing model. Rather,it is a low-level set of tags for specifying voice interaction that canbe embedded into other environments. In addition to X+V and SALT,multimodal applications may be implemented in Java with a Java speechframework, in C++, for example, and with other technologies and in otherenvironments as well.

Currently multimodal application may be used to drive the execution ofmedia content. Often the capability of a multimodal application to drivethe execution of media content using speech is limited because artistsuse many different names over the course of a career, have difficultnames to pronounce, have song titles that are difficult to pronounce, orany other reason that the grammar or lexicons of a speech engine do notinclude grammar rules or pronunciation rules specific to the content ofa media file.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application includingreceiving, by the multimodal browser, a media file having a metadatacontainer; retrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadatacontainer a speech artifact related to content stored in the media filefor inclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browser;determining whether the speech artifact includes a grammar rule or apronunciation rule; if the speech artifact includes a grammar rule,modifying, by the multimodal browser, the grammar of the speech engineto include the grammar rule; and if the speech artifact includes apronunciation rule, modifying, by the multimodal browser, the lexicon ofthe speech engine to include the pronunciation rule.

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of theinvention will be apparent from the following more particulardescriptions of exemplary embodiments of the invention as illustrated inthe accompanying drawings wherein like reference numbers generallyrepresent like parts of exemplary embodiments of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 sets forth a network diagram illustrating an exemplary system forimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application in amultimodal application according to embodiments of the present invention

FIG. 2 sets forth a block diagram of automated computing machinerycomprising an example of a computer useful as a voice server inimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application according toembodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 sets forth a functional block diagram of exemplary apparatus forimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application in a thinclient architecture according to embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 4 sets forth a block diagram of automated computing machinerycomprising an example of a computer useful as a multimodal device inimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application according toembodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 sets forth a flow chart illustrating an exemplary method forimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application according toembodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 6 sets forth a flow chart illustrating an exemplary method ofimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application.

FIG. 7 sets forth a flow chart illustrating an exemplary method ofimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

Exemplary methods, apparatus, and products for improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application are described with reference tothe accompanying drawings, beginning with FIG. 1. FIG. 1 sets forth anetwork diagram illustrating an exemplary system for improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application according to embodiments of thepresent invention. Improving speech capabilities of a multimodalapplication in this example is implemented with a multimodal browser(196) that supports a media player (322) and a speech engine (148)operating on a multimodal device (152) or a speech engine (153) residingon a voice server (151). The system of FIG. 1 includes at least onespeech recognition grammar (104) that specifies words and phrases to berecognized by an automatic speech recognition (‘ASR’) engine (150) of aspeech engine (148, 153). The multimodal device (152) supports multiplemodes of user interaction with the multimodal application including avoice mode and one or more non-voice modes of user interaction with themultimodal application. The voice mode is represented here with audiooutput of voice prompts and responses (177) from the multimodal devicesand audio input of speech for recognition (315) from a user (128).Non-voice modes are represented by input/output devices such askeyboards and display screens on the multimodal devices (152). Themultimodal application is operatively coupled (195) to an ASR engine(150) in a speech engine (148). The operative coupling may beimplemented with an application programming interface (‘API’), a voiceservice module, or a VOIP connection as explained more detail below.

The system of FIG. 1 operates generally to carry out of improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application by receiving, by the multimodalbrowser (196), a media file (324) having a metadata container;retrieving, by the multimodal browser (196), from the metadata containerof the media file (324) a speech artifact related to content stored inthe media file (324) for inclusion in the speech engine (153) availableto the multimodal browser (196); and determining whether the speechartifact (508) includes a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule. If thespeech artifact includes a grammar rule, improving speech capabilitiesof a multimodal application according to the example of FIG. 1 includesmodifying, by the multimodal browser (196), the grammar of the speechengine (148 or 153) to include the grammar rule. If the speech artifactincludes a pronunciation rule, improving speech capabilities of amultimodal application according to the example of FIG. 1 includesmodifying, by the multimodal browser (196), the lexicon of the speechengine (153) to include the pronunciation rule.

A speech artifact is one or more individual speech rules for inclusionin either a grammar or lexicon available to a speech engine used by amultimodal browser for use in executing a multimodal application. Suchspeech artifacts are often embodied in an XML document. The artifact maybe extracted from the XML document and included in a larger grammardefining the words understood by the speech recognition engine or in alexicon defining the manner in which the words so recognized arepronounced.

A multimodal device is an automated device, that is, automated computingmachinery or a computer program running on an automated device, that iscapable of accepting from users more than one mode of input, keyboard,mouse, stylus, and so on, including speech input—and also displayingmore than one mode of output, graphic, speech, and so on. A multimodaldevice is generally capable of accepting speech input from a user,digitizing the speech, and providing digitized speech to a speech enginefor recognition. A multimodal device may be implemented, for example, asa voice-enabled browser on a laptop, a voice browser on a telephonehandset, an online game implemented with Java on a personal computer,and with other combinations of hardware and software as may occur tothose of skill in the art. Because multimodal applications may beimplemented in markup languages (X+V, SALT), object-oriented languages(Java, C++), procedural languages (the C programming language), and inother kinds of computer languages as may occur to those of skill in theart, this specification uses the term ‘multimodal application’ to referto any software application, server-oriented or client-oriented, thinclient or thick client, that administers more than one mode of input andmore than one mode of output, typically including visual and speechmodes.

The system of FIG. 1 includes several example multimodal devices:

-   -   personal computer (107) which is coupled for data communications        to data communications network (100) through wireline connection        (120),    -   personal digital assistant (‘PDA’) (112) which is coupled for        data communications to data communications network (100) through        wireless connection (114),    -   mobile telephone (110) which is coupled for data communications        to data communications network (100) through wireless connection        (116), and    -   laptop computer (126) which is coupled for data communications        to data communications network (100) through wireless connection        (118).

Each of the example multimodal devices (152) in the system of FIG. 1includes a microphone, an audio amplifier, a digital-to-analogconverter, a multimodal browser, and a multimodal application capable ofaccepting from a user (128) speech for recognition (315), digitizing thespeech, and providing the digitized speech to a speech engine forrecognition. The speech may be digitized according to industry standardcodecs, including but not limited to those used for Distributed SpeechRecognition as such. Methods for ‘COding/DECoding’ speech are referredto as ‘codecs.’ The European Telecommunications Standards Institute(‘ETSI’) provides several codecs for encoding speech for use in DSR,including, for example, the ETSI ES 201 108 DSR Front-end Codec, theETSI ES 202 050 Advanced DSR Front-end Codec, the ETSI ES 202 211Extended DSR Front-end Codec, and the ETSI ES 202 212 Extended AdvancedDSR Front-end Codec. In standards such as RFC3557 entitled

-   -   RTP Payload Format for European Telecommunications Standards        Institute (ETSI) European Standard ES 201 108 Distributed Speech        Recognition Encoding        and the Internet Draft entitled    -   RTP Payload Formats for European Telecommunications Standards        Institute (ETSI) European Standard ES 202 050, ES 202 211, and        ES 202 212 Distributed Speech Recognition Encoding,        the IETF provides standard RTP payload formats for various        codecs. It is useful to note, therefore, that there is no        limitation in the present invention regarding codecs, payload        formats, or packet structures. Multimodal applications according        to embodiments of the present invention may implement any codec,        including, for example:    -   AMR (Adaptive Multi-Rate Speech coder)    -   ARDOR (Adaptive Rate-Distortion Optimized sound codeR),    -   Dolby Digital (A/52, AC3),    -   DTS (DTS Coherent Acoustics),    -   MP1 (MPEG audio layer-1),    -   MP2 (MPEG audio layer-2) Layer 2 audio codec (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and        non-ISO MPEG-2.5),    -   MP3 (MPEG audio layer-3) Layer 3 audio codec (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and        non-ISO MPEG-2.5),    -   Perceptual Audio Coding,    -   FS-1015 (LPC-10),    -   FS-1016 (CELP),    -   G.726 (ADPCM),    -   G.728 (LD-CELP),    -   G.729 (CS-ACELP),    -   GSM,    -   HILN (MPEG-4 Parametric audio coding), and    -   others as may occur to those of skill in the art.

As mentioned, a multimodal device according to embodiments of thepresent invention is capable of providing speech to a speech engine forrecognition. A speech engine is a functional module, typically asoftware module, although it may include specialized hardware also, thatdoes the work of recognizing and generating or ‘synthesizing’ humanspeech. The speech engine implements speech recognition by use of afurther module referred to in this specification as a ASR engine, andthe speech engine carries out speech synthesis by use of a furthermodule referred to in this specification as a text-to-speech (‘TTS’)engine. As shown in FIG. 1, a speech engine (148) may be installedlocally in the multimodal device (107) itself, or a speech engine (153)may be installed remotely with respect to the multimodal device, acrossa data communications network (100) in a voice server (151). Amultimodal device that itself contains its own speech engine is said toimplement a ‘thick multimodal client’ or ‘thick client,’ because thethick multimodal client device itself contains all the functionalityneeded to carry out speech recognition and speech synthesis—through APIcalls to speech recognition and speech synthesis modules in themultimodal device itself with no need to send requests for speechrecognition across a network and no need to receive synthesized speechacross a network from a remote voice server. A multimodal device thatdoes not contain its own speech engine is said to implement a ‘thinmultimodal client’ or simply a ‘thin client,’ because the thinmultimodal client itself contains only a relatively thin layer ofmultimodal application software that obtains speech recognition andspeech synthesis services from a voice server located remotely across anetwork from the thin client. For ease of explanation, only one (107) ofthe multimodal devices (152) in the system of FIG. 1 is shown with aspeech engine (148), but readers will recognize that any multimodaldevice may have a speech engine according to embodiments of the presentinvention.

A multimodal application (195) in this example runs in a multimodalbrowser (196). The multimodal client application (195) may be a set orsequence of X+V or SALT documents that execute on the multimodal browser(196). The multimodal browser (196) of FIG. 1 is supports the executionof a media player (322) through voice modes and non-voice modes. A mediaplayer is automated computing machinery for managing and administeringmedia content in media files such as audio files and video files.Examples of media players that may be modified for use in accordancewith the present invention include Music Match™, iTunes®, Songbird™, andothers as will occur to those of skill in the art.

A multimodal application (195) in this example running in a multimodalbrowser (196) provides speech for recognition and text for speechsynthesis to a speech engine through a VoiceXML interpreter (149, 155).A VoiceXML interpreter is a software module of computer programinstructions that accepts voice dialog instructions from a multimodalapplication, typically in the form of a VoiceXML <form> element. Thevoice dialog instructions include one or more grammars, data inputelements, event handlers, and so on, that advise the VoiceXMLinterpreter how to administer voice input from a user and voice promptsand responses to be presented to a user. The VoiceXML interpreteradministers such dialogs by processing the dialog instructionssequentially in accordance with a VoiceXML Form Interpretation Algorithm(‘FIA’).

A Form Interpretation Algorithm (‘FIA’) drives the interaction betweenthe user and a multimodal application. The FIA is generally responsiblefor selecting and playing one or more speech prompts, collecting a userinput, either a response that fills in one or more input items, or athrowing of some event, and interpreting actions that pertained to thenewly filled in input items. The FIA also handles multimodal applicationinitialization, grammar activation and deactivation, entering andleaving forms with matching utterances and many other tasks. The FIAalso maintains an internal prompt counter that is increased with eachattempt to provoke a response from a user. That is, with each failedattempt to prompt a matching speech response from a user an internalprompt counter is incremented.

As shown in FIG. 1, a VoiceXML interpreter (149) may be installedlocally in the multimodal device (107) itself, or a VoiceXML interpreter(155) may be installed remotely with respect to the multimodal device,across a data communications network (100) in a voice server (151). In athick client architecture, a multimodal device (152) includes both itsown speech engine (148) and its own VoiceXML interpreter (149). TheVoiceXML interpreter (149) exposes an API to the multimodal application(195) for use in providing speech recognition and speech synthesis forthe multimodal application. The multimodal application provides dialoginstructions, VoiceXML <form> elements, grammars, input elements, eventhandlers, and so on, through the API to the VoiceXML interpreter, andthe VoiceXML interpreter administers the speech engine on behalf of themultimodal application. In the thick client architecture, VoiceXMLdialogs are interpreted by a VoiceXML interpreter on the multimodaldevice. In the thin client architecture, VoiceXML dialogs areinterpreted by a VoiceXML interpreter on a voice server (151) locatedremotely across a data communications network (100) from the multimodaldevice running the multimodal application (195).

The VoiceXML interpreter provides grammars, speech for recognition, andtext prompts for speech synthesis to the speech engine, and the VoiceXMLinterpreter returns to the multimodal application speech engine outputin the form of recognized speech, semantic interpretation results, anddigitized speech for voice prompts. In a thin client architecture, theVoiceXML interpreter (155) is located remotely from the multimodalclient device in a voice server (151), the API for the VoiceXMLinterpreter is still implemented in the multimodal device, with the APImodified to communicate voice dialog instructions, speech forrecognition, and text and voice prompts to and from the VoiceXMLinterpreter on the voice server. For ease of explanation, only one (107)of the multimodal devices (152) in the system of FIG. 1 is shown with aVoiceXML interpreter (149), but readers will recognize that anymultimodal device may have a VoiceXML interpreter according toembodiments of the present invention. Each of the example multimodaldevices (152) in the system of FIG. 1 may be configured to carry outimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application according tothe present invention. The use of these four example multimodal devices(152) is for explanation only, not for limitation of the invention. Anyautomated computing machinery capable of accepting speech from a user,providing the speech digitized to an ASR engine through a VoiceXMLinterpreter, and receiving and playing speech prompts and responses fromthe VoiceXML interpreter may be improved to function as a multimodaldevice for improving speech capabilities of a multimodal applicationaccording to the present invention.

The system of FIG. 1 also includes a voice server (151) which isconnected to data communications network (100) through wirelineconnection (122). The voice server (151) is a computer that runs aspeech engine (153) that provides voice recognition services formultimodal devices by accepting requests for speech recognition andreturning text representing recognized speech. Voice server (151) alsoprovides speech synthesis, text to speech (‘TTS’) conversion, for voiceprompts and voice responses (314) to user input in multimodalapplications such as, for example, X+V applications, SALT applications,or Java voice applications.

The system of FIG. 1 includes a data communications network (100) thatconnects the multimodal devices (152) and the voice server (151) fordata communications. A data communications network useful for improvingspeech capabilities of a multimodal application according to embodimentsof the present invention is a data communications network composed of aplurality of computers that function as data communications routersconnected for data communications with packet switching protocols. Sucha data communications network may be implemented with opticalconnections, wireline connections, or with wireless connections. Such adata communications network may include intranets, internets, local areadata communications networks (‘LANs’), and wide area data communicationsnetworks (‘WANs’). Such a data communications network may implement, forexample:

-   -   a link layer with the Ethernet™ Protocol or the Wireless        Ethernet™ Protocol,    -   a data communications network layer with the Internet Protocol        (‘IP’),    -   a transport layer with the Transmission Control Protocol (‘TCP’)        or the User Datagram Protocol (‘UDP’),    -   an application layer with the HyperText Transfer Protocol        (‘HTTP’), the Session Initiation Protocol (‘SIP’), the Real Time        Protocol (‘RTP’), the Distributed Multimodal Synchronization        Protocol (‘DMSP’), the Wireless Access Protocol (‘WAP’), the        Handheld Device Transfer Protocol (‘HDTP’), the ITU protocol        known as H.323, and    -   other protocols as will occur to those of skill in the art.

The system of FIG. 1 includes a web server (147) connected for datacommunications through wireline connection (123) to network (100) andtherefore to the multimodal devices (152). The web server (147) may beany server that provides to client devices markup documents that composemultimodal applications. The web server (147) typically provides suchmarkup documents via a data communications protocol, HTTP, HDTP, WAP, orthe like. That is, although the term ‘web’ is used to described the webserver generally in this specification, there is no limitation of datacommunications between multimodal devices and the web server to HTTPalone.

The markup documents also may be implemented in any markup language thatsupports non-speech display elements, data entry elements, and speechelements for identifying which speech to recognize and which words tospeak, grammars, form elements, and the like, including, for example,X+V and SALT. A multimodal application in a multimodal device then, uponreceiving from the web sever (147) a markup document as part of amultimodal application, may execute speech elements by use of a VoiceXMLinterpreter (149) and speech engine (148) in the multimodal deviceitself or by use of a VoiceXML interpreter (155) and speech engine (153)located remotely from the multimodal device in a voice server (151).

The arrangement of the multimodal devices (152), the web server (147),the voice server (151), and the data communications network (100) makingup the exemplary system illustrated in FIG. 1 are for explanation, notfor limitation. Data processing systems useful for improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application according to the presentinvention may include additional servers, routers, other devices, andpeer-to-peer architectures, not shown in FIG. 1, as will occur to thoseof skill in the art. Data communications networks in such dataprocessing systems may support many data communications protocols inaddition to those noted above. Various embodiments of the presentinvention may be implemented on a variety of hardware platforms inaddition to those illustrated in FIG. 1.

Improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application according tothe present invention according to embodiments of the present inventionin a thin client architecture may be implemented with one or more voiceservers, computers, that is, automated computing machinery, that providespeech recognition and speech synthesis. For further explanation,therefore, FIG. 2 sets forth a block diagram of automated computingmachinery comprising an example of a computer useful as a voice server(151) for improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application fora particular multimodal application according to embodiments of thepresent invention. The voice server (151) of FIG. 2 includes at leastone computer processor (156) or ‘CPU’ as well as random access memory(168) (‘RAM’) which is connected through a high speed memory bus (166)and bus adapter (158) to processor (156) and to other components of thevoice server.

Stored in RAM (168) is a voice server application (188), a module ofcomputer program instructions capable of operating a voice server in asystem that is configured for use in improving speech capabilities of amultimodal application according to embodiments of the presentinvention. Voice server application (188) provides voice recognitionservices for multimodal devices by accepting requests for speechrecognition and returning speech recognition results, including textrepresenting recognized speech, text for use as variable values indialogs, and text as string representations of scripts for semanticinterpretation. Voice server application (188) also includes computerprogram instructions that provide text-to-speech (‘TTS’) conversion forvoice prompts and voice responses to user input in multimodalapplications such as, for example, X+V applications, SALT applications,or Java Speech applications.

Voice server application (188) may be implemented as a web server,implemented in Java, C++, or another language, that supports X+V, SALT,VoiceXML, or other multimodal languages, by providing responses to HTTPrequests from X+V clients, SALT clients, Java Speech clients, or othermultimodal clients. Voice server application (188) may, for a furtherexample, be implemented as a Java server that runs on a Java VirtualMachine (102) and supports a Java voice framework by providing responsesto HTTP requests from Java client applications running on multimodaldevices. And voice server applications that support embodiments of thepresent invention may be implemented in other ways as may occur to thoseof skill in the art, and all such ways are well within the scope of thepresent invention.

The voice server (151) in this example includes a speech engine (153).The speech engine is a functional module, typically a software module,although it may include specialized hardware also, that does the work ofrecognizing and generating human speech. The speech engine (153)includes an automated speech recognition (‘ASR’) engine for speechrecognition and a text-to-speech (‘TTS’) engine for generating speech.The speech engine also includes a grammar (104), a lexicon (106), and alanguage-specific acoustic model (108). The language-specific acousticmodel (108) is a data structure, a table or database, for example, thatassociates SFVs with phonemes representing, to the extent that it ispractically feasible to do so, all pronunciations of all the words in ahuman language. The lexicon (106) is an association of words in textform with phonemes representing pronunciations of each word; the lexiconeffectively identifies words that are capable of recognition by an ASRengine. Also stored in RAM (168) is a Text To Speech (‘TTS’) Engine(194), a module of computer program instructions that accepts text asinput and returns the same text in the form of digitally encoded speech,for use in providing speech as prompts for and responses to users ofmultimodal systems.

The grammar (104) communicates to the ASR engine (150) the words andsequences of words that currently may be recognized. For preciseunderstanding, distinguish the purpose of the grammar and the purpose ofthe lexicon. The lexicon associates with phonemes all the words that theASR engine can recognize. The grammar communicates the words currentlyeligible for recognition. The set of words currently eligible forrecognition and the set of words capable of recognition may or may notbe the same.

Grammars may be expressed in any format supported by any ASR engine,including, for example, the Java Speech Grammar Format (‘JSGF’), theformat of the W3C Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (‘SRGS’), theAugmented Backus-Naur Format (‘ABNF’) from the IETF's RFC2234, in theform of a stochastic grammar as described in the W3C's StochasticLanguage Models (N-Gram) Specification, and in other grammar formats asmay occur to those of skill in the art. Grammars typically operate aselements of dialogs, such as, for example, a VoiceXML <menu> or anX+V<form>. A grammar's definition may be expressed in-line in a dialog.Or the grammar may be implemented externally in a separate grammardocument and referenced from with a dialog with a URI. Here is anexample of a grammar expressed in JSFG:

<grammar scope=“dialog” ><![CDATA[   #JSGF V1.0;   grammar command;  <command> = [remind me to] call | phone | telephone   <name> <when>;  <name> = bob | martha | joe | pete | chris | john | artoush;   <when>= today | this afternoon | tomorrow | next week;   ]]> </grammar>

In this example, the elements named <command>, <name>, and <when> arerules of the grammar. Rules are a combination of a rulename and anexpansion of a rule that advises an ASR engine or a voice interpreterwhich words presently can be recognized. In this example, expansionincludes conjunction and disjunction, and the vertical bars ‘|’ mean‘or.’ An ASR engine or a voice interpreter processes the rules insequence, first <command>, then <name>, then <when>. The <command> ruleaccepts for recognition ‘call’ or ‘phone’ or ‘telephone’ plus, that is,in conjunction with, whatever is returned from the <name> rule and the<when> rule. The <name> rule accepts ‘bob’ or ‘martha’ or ‘joe’ or‘pete’ or ‘chris’ or ‘john’ or ‘artoush’, and the <when> rule accepts‘today’ or ‘this afternoon’ or ‘tomorrow’ or ‘next week.’ The commandgrammar as a whole matches utterances like these, for example:

-   -   “phone bob next week,”    -   “telephone martha this afternoon,”    -   “remind me to call chris tomorrow,” and    -   “remind me to phone pete today.”

The voice server application (188) in this example is configured toreceive, from a multimodal client located remotely across a network fromthe voice server, digitized speech for recognition from a user and passthe speech along to the ASR engine (150) for recognition. ASR engine(150) is a module of computer program instructions, also stored in RAMin this example. In carrying out automated speech recognition, the ASRengine receives speech for recognition in the form of at least onedigitized word and uses frequency components of the digitized word toderive a Speech Feature Vector (‘SFV’). An SFV may be defined, forexample, by the first twelve or thirteen Fourier or frequency domaincomponents of a sample of digitized speech. The ASR engine can use theSFV to infer phonemes for the word from the language-specific acousticmodel (108). The ASR engine then uses the phonemes to find the word inthe lexicon (106).

Also stored in RAM is a VoiceXML interpreter (192), a module of computerprogram instructions that processes VoiceXML grammars. VoiceXML input toVoiceXML interpreter (192) may originate, for example, from VoiceXMLclients running remotely on multimodal devices, from X+V clients runningremotely on multimodal devices, from SALT clients running on multimodaldevices, or from Java client applications running remotely on multimediadevices. In this example, VoiceXML interpreter (192) interprets andexecutes VoiceXML segments representing voice dialog instructionsreceived from remote multimedia devices and provided to VoiceXMLinterpreter (192) through voice server application (188).

A multimodal application (195) in a thin client architecture may providevoice dialog instructions, VoiceXML segments, VoiceXML <form> elements,and the like, to VoiceXML interpreter (149) through data communicationsacross a network with multimodal application (195). The voice dialoginstructions include one or more grammars, data input elements, eventhandlers, and so on, that advise the VoiceXML interpreter how toadminister voice input from a user and voice prompts and responses to bepresented to a user. The VoiceXML interpreter administers such dialogsby processing the dialog instructions sequentially in accordance with aVoiceXML Form Interpretation Algorithm (‘FIA’) (193). The VoiceXMLinterpreter interprets VoiceXML dialogs provided to the VoiceXMLinterpreter by a multimodal application.

As mentioned above, a Form Interpretation Algorithm (‘FIA’) drives theinteraction between the user and a multimodal application. The FIA isgenerally responsible for selecting and playing one or more speechprompts, collecting a user input, either a response that fills in one ormore input items, or a throwing of some event, and interpreting actionsthat pertained to the newly filled in input items. The FIA also handlesmultimodal application initialization, grammar activation anddeactivation, entering and leaving forms with matching utterances andmany other tasks. The FIA also maintains an internal prompt counter thatis increased with each attempt to provoke a response from a user. Thatis, with each failed attempt to prompt a matching speech response from auser an internal prompt counter is incremented.

Also stored in RAM (168) is an operating system (154). Operating systemsuseful in voice servers according to embodiments of the presentinvention include UNIX™, Linux™, Microsoft NT™, AIX™, IBM's i5/OS™, andothers as will occur to those of skill in the art. Operating system(154), voice server application (188), VoiceXML interpreter (192), ASRengine (150), JVM (102), and TTS Engine (194) in the example of FIG. 2are shown in RAM (168), but many components of such software typicallyare stored in non-volatile memory also, for example, on a disk drive(170).

Voice server (151) of FIG. 2 includes bus adapter (158), a computerhardware component that contains drive electronics for high speed buses,the front side bus (162), the video bus (164), and the memory bus (166),as well as drive electronics for the slower expansion bus (160).Examples of bus adapters useful in voice servers according toembodiments of the present invention include the Intel Northbridge, theIntel Memory Controller Hub, the Intel Southbridge, and the Intel I/OController Hub. Examples of expansion buses useful in voice serversaccording to embodiments of the present invention include IndustryStandard Architecture (‘ISA’) buses and Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (‘PCI’) buses.

Voice server (151) of FIG. 2 includes disk drive adapter (172) coupledthrough expansion bus (160) and bus adapter (158) to processor (156) andother components of the voice server (151). Disk drive adapter (172)connects non-volatile data storage to the voice server (151) in the formof disk drive (170). Disk drive adapters useful in voice servers includeIntegrated Drive Electronics (‘IDE’) adapters, Small Computer SystemInterface (‘SCSI’) adapters, and others as will occur to those of skillin the art. In addition, non-volatile computer memory may be implementedfor a voice server as an optical disk drive, electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (so-called ‘EEPROM’ or ‘Flash’ memory),RAM drives, and so on, as will occur to those of skill in the art.

The example voice server of FIG. 2 includes one or more input/output(‘I/O’) adapters (178). I/O adapters in voice servers implementuser-oriented input/output through, for example, software drivers andcomputer hardware for controlling output to display devices such ascomputer display screens, as well as user input from user input devices(181) such as keyboards and mice. The example voice server of FIG. 2includes a video adapter (209), which is an example of an I/O adapterspecially designed for graphic output to a display device (180) such asa display screen or computer monitor. Video adapter (209) is connectedto processor (156) through a high speed video bus (164), bus adapter(158), and the front side bus (162), which is also a high speed bus.

The exemplary voice server (151) of FIG. 2 includes a communicationsadapter (167) for data communications with other computers (182) and fordata communications with a data communications network (100). Such datacommunications may be carried out serially through RS-232 connections,through external buses such as a Universal Serial Bus (‘USB’), throughdata communications data communications networks such as IP datacommunications networks, and in other ways as will occur to those ofskill in the art. Communications adapters implement the hardware levelof data communications through which one computer sends datacommunications to another computer, directly or through a datacommunications network. Examples of communications adapters useful forembodiments of the present invention include modems for wired dial-upcommunications, Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) adapters for wired datacommunications network communications, and 802.11 adapters for wirelessdata communications network communications.

For further explanation, FIG. 3 sets forth a functional block diagram ofexemplary apparatus for improving speech capabilities of a multimodalapplication for a particular multimodal application according to thepresent invention in a thin client architecture according to embodimentsof the present invention. The example of FIG. 3 includes a multimodaldevice (152) and a voice server (151) connected for data communicationby a VOIP connection (216) through a data communications network (100).A multimodal application (195) runs on the multimodal device (152), anda voice server application (188) runs on the voice server (151). Themultimodal client application (195) may be a set or sequence of X+V orSALT documents that execute on multimodal browser (196), a Java voiceapplication that executes on the Java Virtual Machine (101), or amultimodal application implemented in other technologies as may occur tothose of skill in the art. The example multimodal device of FIG. 3 alsoincludes a sound card (174), which is an example of an I/O adapterspecially designed for accepting analog audio signals from a microphone(176) and converting the audio analog signals to digital form forfurther processing by a codec (183).

In addition to the multimodal sever application (188), the voice server(151) also has installed upon it a speech engine (153) with an ASRengine (150), a grammar (104), a lexicon (106), a language-specificacoustic model (108), and a TTS engine (194), as well as a JVM (102),and a Voice XML interpreter (192). VoiceXML interpreter (192) interpretsand executes VoiceXML dialog instructions received from the multimodalapplication and provided to VoiceXML interpreter (192) through voiceserver application (188). VoiceXML input to VoiceXML interpreter (192)may originate from the multimodal application (195) implemented as anX+V client running remotely on the multimodal device (152). As notedabove, the multimedia device application (195) also may be implementedas a Java client application running remotely on the multimedia device(152), a SALT application running remotely on the multimedia device(152), and in other ways as may occur to those of skill in the art.

VOIP stands for ‘Voice Over Internet Protocol,’ a generic term forrouting speech over an IP-based data communications network. The speechdata flows over a general-purpose packet-switched data communicationsnetwork, instead of traditional dedicated, circuit-switched voicetransmission lines. Protocols used to carry voice signals over the IPdata communications network are commonly referred to as ‘Voice over IP’or ‘VOIP’ protocols. VOIP traffic may be deployed on any IP datacommunications network, including data communications networks lacking aconnection to the rest of the Internet, for instance on a privatebuilding-wide local area data communications network or ‘LAN.’

Many protocols are used to effect VOIP. The two most popular types ofVOIP are effected with the IETF's Session Initiation Protocol (‘SIP’)and the ITU's protocol known as ‘H.323.’ SIP clients use TCP and UDPport 5060 to connect to SIP servers. SIP itself is used to set up andtear down calls for speech transmission. VOIP with SIP then uses RTP fortransmitting the actual encoded speech. Similarly, H.323 is an umbrellarecommendation from the standards branch of the InternationalTelecommunications Union that defines protocols to provide audio-visualcommunication sessions on any packet data communications network.

The apparatus of FIG. 3 operates in a manner that is similar to theoperation of the system of FIG. 2 described above. Multimodalapplication (195) is a user-level, multimodal, client-side computerprogram that presents a voice interface to user (128), provides audioprompts and responses (314) and accepts input speech for recognition(315). Multimodal application (195) provides a speech interface throughwhich a user may provide oral speech for recognition through microphone(176) and have the speech digitized through an audio amplifier (185) anda coder/decoder (‘codec’) (183) of a sound card (174) and provide thedigitized speech for recognition to ASR engine (150). Multimodalapplication (195) then packages the digitized speech in a recognitionrequest message according to a VOIP protocol, and transmits the speechto voice server (151) through the VOIP connection (216) on the network(100).

Voice server application (188) provides voice recognition services formultimodal devices by accepting dialog instructions, VoiceXML segments,and returning speech recognition results, including text representingrecognized speech, text for use as variable values in dialogs, andoutput from execution of semantic interpretation scripts as well asvoice prompts. Voice server application (188) includes computer programinstructions that provide text-to-speech (‘TTS’) conversion for voiceprompts and voice responses to user input in multimodal applicationssuch as, for example, X+V applications, SALT applications, or JavaSpeech applications.

The voice server application (188) receives speech for recognition froma user and passes the speech through API calls to VoiceXML interpreter(192) which in turn uses an ASR engine (150) for speech recognition. TheASR engine receives digitized speech for recognition, uses frequencycomponents of the digitized speech to derive an SFV, uses the SFV toinfer phonemes for the word from the language-specific acoustic model(108), and uses the phonemes to find the speech in the lexicon (106).The ASR engine then compares speech found as words in the lexicon towords in a grammar (104) to determine whether words or phrases in speechare recognized by the ASR engine.

A multimodal application (195) in this example runs in a multimodalbrowser (196). The multimodal browser of FIG. 3 is capable of receivinga media file having a metadata container, retrieving from the metadatacontainer a speech artifact related to content stored in the media filefor inclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browser,determining whether the speech artifact includes a grammar rule or apronunciation rule. If the speech artifact includes a grammar rule, themultimodal browser is capable of modifying the grammar of the speechengine to include the grammar rule. If the speech artifact includes apronunciation rule, the multimodal browser is capable of modifying thelexicon of the speech engine to include the pronunciation rule.

The multimodal application (195) is operatively coupled to the ASRengine (150). In this example, the operative coupling between themultimodal application and the ASR engine (150) is implemented with aVOIP connection (216) through a voice services module (130), thenthrough the voice server application (188) and either JVM (102),VoiceXML interpreter (192), or SALT interpreter (103), depending onwhether the multimodal application is implemented in X+V, Java, or SALT.The voice services module (130) is a thin layer of functionality, amodule of computer program instructions, that presents an API (316) foruse by an application level program in providing dialog instructions andspeech for recognition to a voice server application (188) and receivingin response voice prompts and other responses. In this example,application level programs are represented by multimodal application(195), JVM (101), and multimodal browser (196).

The voice services module (130) provides data communications servicesthrough the VOIP connection and the voice server application (188)between the multimodal device (152) and the VoiceXML interpreter (192).The API (316) is the same API presented to applications by a VoiceXMLinterpreter when the VoiceXML interpreter is installed on the multimodaldevice in a thick client architecture (316 on FIG. 4). So from the pointof view of an application calling the API (316), the application iscalling the VoiceXML interpreter directly. The data communicationsfunctions of the voice services module (130) are transparent toapplications that call the API (316). At the application level, calls tothe API (316) may be issued from the multimodal browser (196), whichprovides an execution environment for the multimodal application (195)when the multimodal application is implemented with X+V. And calls tothe API (316) may be issued from the JVM (101), which provides anexecution environment for the multimodal application (195) when themultimodal application is implemented with Java.

Improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application according toembodiments of the present invention in thick client architectures isgenerally implemented with multimodal devices, that is, automatedcomputing machinery or computers. In the system of FIG. 1, for example,all the multimodal devices (152) are implemented to some extent at leastas computers. For further explanation, therefore, FIG. 4 sets forth ablock diagram of automated computing machinery comprising an example ofa computer useful as a multimodal device (152) for improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application according to embodiments of thepresent invention. In a multimodal device implementing a thick clientarchitecture as illustrated in FIG. 4, the multimodal device (152) hasno connection to a remote voice server containing a VoiceXML interpreterand a speech engine. All the components needed for speech synthesis andvoice recognition according to embodiments of the present invention areinstalled or embedded in the multimodal device itself.

The example multimodal device (152) of FIG. 4 includes severalcomponents that are structured and operate similarly as do parallelcomponents of the voice server, having the same drawing referencenumbers, as described above with reference to FIG. 2: at least onecomputer processor (156), frontside bus (162), RAM (168), high speedmemory bus (166), bus adapter (158), video adapter (209), video bus(164), expansion bus (160), communications adapter (167), I/O adapter(178), disk drive adapter (172), an operating system (154), a JVM (102),a VoiceXML Interpreter (192), a speech engine (153), and so on. As inthe system of FIG. 4, the speech engine in the multimodal device of FIG.2 includes an ASR engine (150), a grammar (104), a lexicon (106), alanguage-dependent acoustic model (108), and a TTS engine (194). TheVoiceXML interpreter (192) administers such dialogs by processing thedialog instructions sequentially in accordance with a VoiceXML FormInterpretation Algorithm (‘FIA’) (193).

The speech engine (153) in this kind of embodiment, a thick clientarchitecture, often is implemented as an embedded module in a small formfactor device such as a handheld device, a mobile phone, PDA, and thelike. An example of an embedded speech engine useful according toembodiments of the present invention is IBM's Embedded ViaVoiceEnterprise. The example multimodal device of FIG. 4 also includes asound card (174), which is an example of an I/O adapter speciallydesigned for accepting analog audio signals from a microphone (176) andconverting the audio analog signals to digital form for furtherprocessing by a codec (183). The sound card (174) is connected toprocessor (156) through expansion bus (160), bus adapter (158), andfront side bus (162).

Also stored in RAM (168) in this example is a multimodal application(195), a module of computer program instructions capable of operating amultimodal device as an apparatus that supports embodiments of thepresent invention. The multimodal application (195) runs with amultimodal browser (196) and implements speech recognition by acceptingspeech for recognition from a user and sending the speech forrecognition through API calls to the ASR engine (150). The multimodalapplication (195) and the multimodal browser (196) implement speechsynthesis generally by sending words to be used as prompts for a user tothe TTS engine (194). As an example of thick client architecture, themultimodal application (195) in this example does not send speech forrecognition across a network to a voice server for recognition, and themultimodal application (195) in this example does not receivesynthesized speech, TTS prompts and responses, across a network from avoice server. All grammar processing, voice recognition, and text tospeech conversion in this example is performed in an embedded fashion inthe multimodal device (152) itself.

More particularly, multimodal application (195) in this example is auser-level, multimodal, client-side computer program that provides aspeech interface through which a user may provide oral speech forrecognition through microphone (176), have the speech digitized throughan audio amplifier (185) and a coder/decoder (‘codec’) (183) of a soundcard (174) and provide the digitized speech for recognition to ASRengine (150). The multimodal application (195) may be implemented as aset or sequence of X+V documents executing in a multimodal browser (196)or microbrowser that passes VoiceXML grammars and digitized speech bycalls through an API (316) directly to an embedded VoiceXML interpreter(192) for processing. The embedded VoiceXML interpreter (192) may inturn issue requests for speech recognition through API calls directly tothe embedded ASR engine (150). Multimodal application (195) also canprovide speech synthesis, TTS conversion, by API calls to the embeddedTTS engine (194) for voice prompts and voice responses to user input.

In further exemplary embodiments, the multimodal application (195) maybe implemented as a set or sequence X+V documents or SALT documentsexecuted on a multimodal browser (196) or microbrowser that issues callsthrough the VoiceXML API (316) for speech recognition and speechsynthesis services. In addition to X+V, SALT, and Java implementations,multimodal application (195) may be implemented in other technologies aswill occur to those of skill in the art, and all such implementationsare well within the scope of the present invention. The multimodalapplication (195) is operatively coupled to the ASR engine (150) throughan API (320). In this example, the operative coupling between themultimodal application and the ASR engine (150) is implemented by eitherJVM (102), VoiceXML interpreter (192), or SALT interpreter (103),depending on whether the multimodal application is implemented in X+V,Java, or SALT. When the multimodal application (195) is implemented inX+V, the operative coupling is effected through the multimodal browser(196), which provides an operating environment and an interpreter forthe X+V application, and then through the VoiceXML interpreter, whichpasses grammars and voice utterances for recognition to the ASR engine.When the multimodal application (195) is implemented in Java Speech, theoperative coupling is effected through the JVM (102), which provides anoperating environment for the Java application and passes grammars andvoice utterances for recognition to the ASR engine. When the multimodalapplication (195) is implemented in SALT, the operative coupling iseffected through the SALT interpreter (103), which provides an operatingenvironment and an interpreter for the X+V application and passesgrammars and voice utterances for recognition to the ASR engine.

The multimodal application (195) in this example, running on amultimodal device (152) that contains its own VoiceXML interpreter (192)and its own speech engine (153) with no network or VOIP connection to aremote voice server containing a remote VoiceXML interpreter or a remotespeech engine, is an example of a so-called ‘thick client architecture,’so-called because all of the functionality for processing voice modeinteractions between a user and the multimodal application—as well asthe functionality for speech recognition—is implemented on themultimodal device itself.

The multimodal browser (196) of FIG. 4 operates generally to carry outimproving speech capabilities of a multimodal application by receiving amedia file (324) having a metadata container; retrieving from themetadata container a speech artifact related to content stored in themedia file (324) for inclusion in the speech engine (153) available tothe multimodal browser; determining whether the speech artifact includesa grammar rule or a pronunciation rule; if the speech artifact includesa grammar rule, modifying the grammar (104) of the speech engine toinclude the grammar rule; and if the speech artifact includes apronunciation rule, modifying the lexicon (106) of the speech engine toinclude the pronunciation rule.

For further explanation, FIG. 5 sets forth a flow chart illustrating amethod of improving speech capabilities of a multimodal application. Themethod of FIG. 5 is implemented with a multimodal browser (196) and aspeech engine (153) operating on a multimodal device supporting multiplemodes of user interaction with the multimodal application. The modes ofuser interaction supported by the multimodal device include a voice modeand one or more non-voice modes. The voice mode includes acceptingspeech input from a user, digitizing the speech, and providing digitizedspeech to a speech engine available to the multimodal browser forrecognition. The non-voice mode includes accepting input from a userthrough physical user interaction with a user input device for themultimodal device. The multimodal browser comprises a module ofautomated computing machinery for executing the multimodal applicationand also supports the execution of a media file player. Such a mediafile player is capable of playing media files such as audio or videofiles. Examples of such media files include MPEG 3 (‘.mp3’) files, MPEG4 (‘.mp4’) files, Advanced Audio Coding (‘AAC’) compressed files,Advances Streaming Format (‘ASF’) Files, WAV files, and many others aswill occur to those of skill in the art.

The method of FIG. 5 includes receiving (502), by the multimodal browser(196), a media file (324) having a metadata container (504). A metadatacontainer contains metadata describing the content of the media file.Such content may include, for example, the name of the artist of thesong contained in the media file, the name of the album associated withthat song, album art, the name of the song contained in the media file,and any other metadata that will occur to those of skill in the art.MPEG media files support a metadata container called ID3 tags. Oneparticular form of the ID3 tag is an ID3v2 tag. ID3v2 tag provides acontainer for metadata associated with the media file. An ID3v2 tagincludes one or more frames supporting the inclusion of text, images,files, and other information. ID3v2 tags are flexible and expandablebecause parsers that do not support specific functions of an ID3v2 tagwill ignore those functions. ID3v2 supports Unicode thereby providingthe ability to include extracted text of many different languages. Themaximum tag size of an ID3v2 tag is typically 256 megabytes and maximumframe size is typically 16 megabytes.

The method of FIG. 5 includes retrieving (506), by the multimodalbrowser (196), from the metadata container (504) a speech artifact (508)related to content stored in the media file (324) for inclusion in thespeech engine (153) available to the multimodal browser (196). A speechartifact is one or more individual speech rules for inclusion in eithera grammar or lexicon available to a speech engine used by a multimodalbrowser for use in executing a multimodal application. Such speechartifacts are often embodied in an XML document. The artifact may beextracted from the XML document and included in a larger grammardefining the words understood by the speech recognition engine or in alexicon defining the manner in which the words so recognized arepronounced.

In the method of FIG. 5, retrieving (506), by the multimodal browser(196), from the metadata container (504) a speech artifact (508) forinclusion in a speech engine (153) available to the multimodal browser(196) is carried out by scanning (550) the metadata container (504) fora tag identifying the speech artifact (508). Scanning the metadatacontainer for a tag identifying the speech artifacts may be carried outby scanning an ID3 container of an MPEG media file for a frameidentifying speech artifacts. As mentioned above, ID3v2 tags includesone or more frames supporting the inclusion of text, images, files, andother information. Such ID3 tags may be expanded to include frames forspeech artifacts. Such a new frame may identify a grammar rule or alexicon for inclusion in a speech engine.

The method of FIG. 5 includes determining (510) whether the speechartifact (508) includes a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule.Determining (510) whether the speech artifact (508) includes a grammarrule or a pronunciation rule may be carried out by identifying a framein an ID3 tag designating a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule. Agrammar rule identifies words and sequences of words that may berecognized by a speech engine in executing a multimodal application. Apronunciation rule identifies an association of words in text form withphonemes representing pronunciations of the words

If the speech artifact includes a grammar rule (512), the method of FIG.5 includes modifying (514), by the multimodal browser (196), the grammar(104) of the speech engine (153) to include the grammar rule (516).Modifying (514), by the multimodal browser (196), the grammar (104) ofthe speech engine (153) to include the grammar rule (516) may be carriedout by calling functions in an API exposed by the speech engine tomodify the grammar of the speech engine to include the grammar rule(516).

If the speech artifact includes a pronunciation rule (518), the methodof FIG. 5 includes modifying (520), by the multimodal browser (196), thelexicon (106) of the speech engine (153) to include the pronunciationrule (522). Modifying (520), by the multimodal browser (196), thelexicon (106) of the speech engine (153) to include the pronunciationrule (522) may be carried out by calling functions in an API exposed bythe speech engine to modify the lexicon (106) of the speech engine toinclude the pronunciation rule (518).

For further explanation, FIG. 6 sets forth a flow chart illustrating anexemplary method of improving speech capabilities of a multimodalapplication. The method of FIG. 6 is similar to the method of FIG. 5 inthat the method of FIG. 6 includes receiving (502), by the multimodalbrowser (196), a media file (324) having a metadata container (504);retrieving (506), by the multimodal browser (196), from the metadatacontainer (504) a speech artifact (508) related to content stored in themedia file (324) for inclusion in the speech engine (153) available tothe multimodal browser (196); determining (510) whether the speechartifact (508) includes a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule and ifthe speech artifact includes a grammar rule (512), modifying (514), bythe multimodal browser (196), the grammar (104) of the speech engine(153) to include the grammar rule (516); and if the speech artifactincludes a pronunciation rule (518), modifying (520), by the multimodalbrowser (196), the lexicon (106) of the speech engine (153) to includethe pronunciation rule (522).

In the method of FIG. 6, retrieving (506), by the multimodal browser(196), from the metadata container (504) a speech artifact (508) forinclusion in a speech engine (153) available to the multimodal browser(196) includes retrieving (550) an XML document (552) from the metadatacontainer (504). Such an XML document includes text of a grammar rulefor inclusion in a speech engine.

In the method of FIG. 6, modifying (514), by the multimodal browser(196), the grammar (104) of the speech engine (153) to include thegrammar rule (516) includes extracting (554) from the XML document (552)retrieved from the metadata container a grammar rule and including (556)the grammar rule (516) in an XML grammar document in the speech engine(153). Extracting (554) from the XML document (552) retrieved from themetadata container a grammar rule and including (556) the grammar rule(516) in an XML grammar document in the speech engine (153) may includecopying the text of the grammar rule from the XML document and providingthe text to a speech engine through a function call parameterized withthe text for inclusion in the XML grammar document in the speech engine.

For further explanation, FIG. 7 sets forth a flow chart illustrating anexemplary method of improving speech capabilities of a multimodalapplication. The method of FIG. 7 is similar to the method of FIG. 5 inthat the method of FIG. 7 includes receiving (502), by the multimodalbrowser (196), a media file (324) having a metadata container (504);retrieving (506), by the multimodal browser (196), from the metadatacontainer (504) a speech artifact (508) related to content stored in themedia file (324) for inclusion in the speech engine (153) available tothe multimodal browser (196); determining (510) whether the speechartifact (508) includes a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule and ifthe speech artifact includes a grammar rule (512), modifying (514), bythe multimodal browser (196), the grammar (104) of the speech engine(153) to include the grammar rule (516); and if the speech artifactincludes a pronunciation rule (518), modifying (520), by the multimodalbrowser (196), the lexicon (106) of the speech engine (153) to includethe pronunciation rule (522).

In the method of FIG. 7, retrieving (506), by the multimodal browser(196), from the metadata container (504) a speech artifact (508) forinclusion in a speech engine (153) available to the multimodal browser(196) includes retrieving (650) an XML document (652) from the metadatacontainer (504). Such an XML document includes text of a pronunciationrule for inclusion in a speech engine.

In the method of FIG. 7, modifying (520), by the multimodal browser(196), the lexicon (106) of the speech engine (153) to include thepronunciation rule (522) includes extracting (654) from the XML document(652) retrieved from the metadata container a pronunciation rule andincluding (656) the pronunciation rule (522) in an XML lexicon document(658) in the speech engine (153). Extracting (654) from the XML document(652) retrieved from the metadata container a pronunciation rule andincluding (656) the pronunciation rule (522) in an XML lexicon document(658) in the speech engine (153) may include copying the text of thegrammar rule from the XML document and providing the text to a speechengine through a function call parameterized with the text for inclusionin the XML grammar document in the speech engine.

For further explanation, consider the following use case for improvingspeech capabilities of a multimodal application according to embodimentsof the present invention. A multimodal browser configured according toembodiments of the present invention receives a media file having an ID3metadata container and retrieves from the ID3 metadata container thefollowing speech artifact embodied in an XML document related to contentstored in the media file for inclusion in the speech engine available tothe multimodal browser:

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding =“iso-8859-1”?> <!DOCTYPE grammar PUBLIC“-//W3C//DTD GRAMMAR 1.0//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/speech-grammar/gr<grammar version=“1.0” xmlns=“http://www.w3.org/2001/06/grammar”xml:lang=“en-US” root=“artist-nam <rule id=“artist-names”scope=“public”>   <tag><id3-frame>TPENameGrammar</id3-frame></tag>  <one-of>     <item>John Cougar</item>     <item>John CougarMellencamp</item>     <item>John Mellencamp</item>   </one-of> </rule></grammar>

A multimodal browser according to embodiments of the present inventiondetermines whether the speech artifact includes a grammar rule or apronunciation rule. In this example, the speech artifact is a grammarrule so identified by the ID3 tag frame ‘TPENameGrammar’ which ispredefined to identify grammar rules for names of artists. The grammarrule id identifies the grammar rule as a rule for artist names. In thiscase the grammar rule identifies three artist names associated with thecontent of the media file, “John Cougar, “John Cougar Mellencamp,” and“John Mellencamp” A multimodal browser according to embodiments of thepresent invention then may include this grammar rule in an XML grammarof a speech engine by providing the text of the grammar rule forinclusion in the grammar of the speech engine. Multimodal applicationsfor playing songs by John Cougar Mellencamp may now usefully be speechdriven using any one of the three names used by John Cougar Mellencampduring his career, “John Cougar, “John Cougar Mellencamp,” and “JohnMellencamp” Such applications may have been incapable of a voice modeusing all three names prior to the inclusion of the grammar rule.

Continuing now with a use case for pronunciation rules, a multimodalbrowser configured according to embodiments of the present inventionreceives a media file having an ID3 metadata container and retrievesfrom the ID3 metadata container the following speech artifact embodiedin an XML document related to content stored in the media file forinclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browser:

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding =“iso-8859-1”?> <!DOCTYPE grammar PUBLIC“-//W3C//DTD GRAMMAR 1.0//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/speech-grammar/gr<grammar version=“1.0” xmlns=“http://www.w3.org/2001/06/grammar”xml:lang=“en-US” root=“artist-name” <lexiconuri=“id3://TPEPronunciationName”/>   <rule id=“artist-names”scope=“public”>   <one-of>   <item>Sade</item>   </one-of>   </rule></grammar>

A multimodal browser according to embodiments of the present inventiondetermines whether the speech artifact includes a grammar rule or apronunciation rule. In this example the speech artifact is apronunciation rule so identified by the ID3 tag frame‘TPEPronunciationName’ which is predefined to identify pronunciationrules for names of artists. The pronunciation rule id identifies thegrammar word associated with a pronunciation rule which is ‘Sade,’ anartist name that is typically difficult for a speech recognition engineto recognize and a text-to-speech engine to correctly pronounce. Sade ispronounced ‘Shaaday.’ The XML document above also references a URIcontaining an XML pronunciation rule and the multimodal browserretrieves the XML pronunciation rule below:

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?> <lexicon version=“1.0”xmlns=“http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexicon”xmlns:xsi=“http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”xsi:schemaLocation=“http://www.w3.org/2005/01/pronunciation-lexiconhttp://www.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-pronunciation-lexicon-20071212/pls.xsd”alphabet=“ipa” xml:lang=“en-GB”> <lexeme>   <grapheme>Sade</grapheme>  <phoneme>SH AA D EY</phoneme>   </lexeme> </lexicon>

In this example, the pronunciation rule identifies by the tag <grapheme>that the name of the artist whose pronunciation is being defined by thepronunciation rule is ‘Sade.’ The pronunciation rule also defines thepronunciation of Sade with the tag <phoneme> identifying the phonemesfor correct pronunciation of the artist Sade. A multimodal browseraccording to embodiments of the present invention then may include thispronunciation rule in an XML lexicon of a speech engine by providing thetext of the pronunciation rule for inclusion in the lexicon of thespeech engine. Multimodal applications for playing songs by Sade may nowusefully be speech driven using the proper pronunciation of the artist'sname. Such applications may have been incapable of a voice mode usingthe proper pronunciation of the artist's name prior to the inclusion ofthe pronunciation rule.

Exemplary embodiments of the present invention are described largely inthe context of a fully functional computer system for improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application. Readers of skill in the artwill recognize, however, that the present invention also may be embodiedin a computer program product disposed on computer-readable signalbearing media for use with any suitable data processing system. Suchsignal bearing media may be transmission media or recordable media formachine-readable information, including magnetic media, optical media,or other suitable media. Examples of recordable media include magneticdisks in hard drives or diskettes, compact disks for optical drives,magnetic tape, and others as will occur to those of skill in the art.Examples of transmission media include telephone networks for voicecommunications and digital data communications networks such as, forexample, Ethernets™ and networks that communicate with the InternetProtocol and the World Wide Web. Persons skilled in the art willimmediately recognize that any computer system having suitableprogramming means will be capable of executing the steps of the methodof the invention as embodied in a program product. Persons skilled inthe art will recognize immediately that, although some of the exemplaryembodiments described in this specification are oriented to softwareinstalled and executing on computer hardware, nevertheless, alternativeembodiments implemented as firmware or as hardware are well within thescope of the present invention.

It will be understood from the foregoing description that modificationsand changes may be made in various embodiments of the present inventionwithout departing from its true spirit. The descriptions in thisspecification are for purposes of illustration only and are not to beconstrued in a limiting sense. The scope of the present invention islimited only by the language of the following claims.

1. A method of improving speech capabilities of a multimodalapplication, the method implemented with a multimodal browser and aspeech engine operating on a multimodal device supporting multiple modesof user interaction with the multimodal application, the modes of userinteraction including a voice mode and one or more non-voice modes,wherein the voice mode includes accepting speech input from a user,digitizing the speech, and providing digitized speech to a speech engineavailable to the multimodal browser for recognition, and wherein thenon-voice mode includes accepting input from a user through physicaluser interaction with a user input device for the multimodal device;wherein the multimodal browser comprises a module of automated computingmachinery for executing the multimodal application and the multimodalbrowser supports execution of a media file player, a module of automatedcomputing machinery for playing media files; the method comprising:receiving, by the multimodal browser, a media file having a metadatacontainer; retrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadatacontainer a speech artifact related to content stored in the media filefor inclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browser,wherein said retrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadatacontainer the speech artifact for inclusion in a speech engine availableto the multimodal browser comprises retrieving an XML document from themetadata container; determining whether the speech artifact includes agrammar rule or a pronunciation rule; if the speech artifact includes agrammar rule, modifying, by the multimodal browser, the grammar of thespeech engine to include the grammar rule, wherein said modifying, bythe multimodal browser, the grammar of the speech engine to include thegrammar rule includes extracting from the XML document retrieved fromthe metadata container a grammar rule and including the grammar rule inan XML grammar document in the speech engine; and if the speech artifactincludes a pronunciation rule, modifying, by the multimodal browser, thelexicon of the speech engine to include the pronunciation rule, whereinsaid modifying, by the multimodal browser, the lexicon of the speechengine to include the pronunciation rule includes extracting from theXML document retrieved from the metadata container a pronunciation ruleand including the pronunciation rule in an XML lexicon document in thespeech engine.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein retrieving, by themultimodal browser, from the metadata container a speech artifact forinclusion in a speech engine available to the multimodal browser furthercomprises scanning the metadata container for a tag identifying thespeech artifact.
 3. The method of claim 2 wherein scanning the metadatacontainer for a tag identifying the speech artifacts further comprisesscanning an ID3 container of an MPEG media file for a frame identifyingspeech artifacts.
 4. An apparatus for improving speech capabilities of amultimodal application, the apparatus including a multimodal browser anda multimodal application operating on a multimodal device supportingmultiple modes of user interaction with the multimodal application, themodes of user interaction including a voice mode and one or morenon-voice modes, the apparatus comprising a computer processor and acomputer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor, thecomputer memory having disposed within it computer program instructionsfor: receiving, by the multimodal browser, a media file having ametadata container; retrieving, by the multimodal browser, from themetadata container a speech artifact related to content stored in themedia file for inclusion in the speech engine available to themultimodal browser, wherein the computer program instructions forretrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadata container thespeech artifact for inclusion in the speech engine available to themultimodal browser comprises computer program instructions forretrieving an XML document from the metadata container; determiningwhether the speech artifact includes a grammar rule or a pronunciationrule; if the speech artifact includes a grammar rule, modifying, by themultimodal browser, the grammar of the speech engine to include thegrammar rule, wherein the computer program instructions for modifying,by the multimodal browser, the grammar of the speech engine to includethe grammar rule includes computer program instructions for extractingfrom the XML document retrieved from the metadata container a grammarrule and including the grammar rule in an XML grammar document in thespeech engine; and if the speech artifact includes a pronunciation rule,modifying, by the multimodal browser, the lexicon of the speech engineto include the pronunciation rule, wherein the computer programinstructions for modifying, by the multimodal browser, the lexicon ofthe speech engine to include the pronunciation rule include computerprogram instructions for extracting from the XML document retrieved fromthe metadata container a pronunciation rule and including thepronunciation rule in an XML lexicon document in the speech engine. 5.The apparatus of claim 4 wherein computer program instructions forretrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadata container aspeech artifact for inclusion in a speech engine available to themultimodal browser further comprise computer program instructions forscanning the metadata container for a tag identifying the speechartifact.
 6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein computer programinstructions for scanning the metadata container for a tag identifyingthe speech artifacts further comprise computer program instructions forscanning an ID3 container of an MPEG media file for a frame identifyingspeech artifacts.
 7. A computer program product for improving speechcapabilities of a multimodal application, the computer program productincluding a multimodal browser for operating on a multimodal devicesupporting multiple modes of user interaction with the multimodalapplication, the modes of user interaction including a voice mode andone or more non-voice modes, the computer program product disposed upona computer-readable, recording medium, the computer program productcomprising computer program instructions capable for: receiving, by themultimodal browser, a media file having a metadata container;retrieving, by the multimodal browser, from the metadata container aspeech artifact related to content stored in the media file forinclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browser,wherein the computer program instructions for retrieving, by themultimodal browser, from the metadata container the speech artifact forinclusion in the speech engine available to the multimodal browsercomprises computer program instructions for retrieving an XML documentfrom the metadata container; determining whether the speech artifactincludes a grammar rule or a pronunciation rule; if the speech artifactincludes a grammar rule, modifying, by the multimodal browser, thegrammar of the speech engine to include the grammar rule, wherein thecomputer program instructions for modifying, by the multimodal browser,the grammar of the speech engine to include the grammar rule includescomputer program instructions for extracting from the XML documentretrieved from the metadata container a grammar rule and including thegrammar rule in an XML grammar document in the speech engine; and if thespeech artifact includes a pronunciation rule, modifying, by themultimodal browser, the lexicon of the speech engine to include thepronunciation rule, wherein the computer program instructions formodifying, by the multimodal browser, the lexicon of the speech engineto include the pronunciation rule include computer program instructionsfor extracting from the XML document retrieved from the metadatacontainer a pronunciation rule and including the pronunciation rule inan XML lexicon document in the speech engine.
 8. The computer programproduct of claim 7 wherein computer program instructions for retrieving,by the multimodal browser, from the metadata container a speech artifactfor inclusion in a speech engine available to the multimodal browserfurther comprise computer program instructions for scanning the metadatacontainer for a tag identifying the speech artifact.
 9. The computerprogram product of claim 8 wherein computer program instructions forscanning the metadata container for a tag identifying the speechartifacts further comprise computer program instructions for scanning anID3 container of an MPEG media file for a frame identifying speechartifacts.